Call them ankle-biters, but it's the brain that is slowly being eaten

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I caught a movie this week, or, to be precise, caught every
third or fourth minute as it flew by. It was as if my brain wasn't
properly tuned: I got the gist, but the detail was blurred by
static. I should've seen one of those movies where they repeat
everything in triplicate (that is, any movie other than the one I
saw) or, better still, a pre-1980s movie where the twists and turns
are cushioned between longueurs and breathing-spaces.

There are two reasons for my mental feebleness. One is a
two-year-old, and the other is a one-year-old. Of course I have
only myself and their mother to blame, and of course they're
darling little things, best thing that ever happened, don't regret
a minute, etc etc. Take all that as a given.

However - back to the mental cost. When I picture the maze of
squiggly matter between my ears, I see two little Pacmen munching
their way through. (Luckily, my children will never know what a
Pacman is unless they study ancient history, and even then they'll
never appreciate that relentless pea-headed chomping,
munch-munch-munch, with which the Pacman eats its way to world
domination.) I can't say how far my Pacmen have left to go, but my
experience at the cinema indicates just how far they have already
gone.

A good part of this neurological erosion takes place on the trip
between home and child care. Several times a week, I pile the
Pacmen into a double pram and we walk 10 minutes to the train
station. Then I buy a ticket and judder them down a steep staircase
onto the platform. We wait patiently for the train, and, once
aboard, the Pacmen kick and scream to be let loose and can only be
distracted by bribes of food and water and the promise of imminent
de-training.

When we get off, I haul the loaded double pram up a triple-level
stairway (once I was helped), fight through the exit, climb another
flight of stairs and take a 15-minute walk in baking sunshine to
the child-care centre. Once there, I spend 15 minutes signing them
in, making their beds, painting them with sunscreen, dislodging one
or both from my legs and undertaking the careful farewell
negotiations that are not unlike a soldier leaving his sweetheart
for the fields of Passchendaele. Then it's a 20-minute walk to my
office where I collapse in a puddle of sweat and exhaustion, 90
minutes after leaving home, all primed for the day ahead.

The point of this is not to exaggerate the virtue of my actions,
although flowers, kind wishes and other gifts (no greater value
than $20) would be gratefully received. The point is this: there
are four child-care centres within a five-minute stroll from where
we live, and I have no hope of getting my children into any of
them. Places may come up by the time the children turn 10. But not
necessarily.

The "child-care debate", as it is affectionately known by those
who also enjoy the sound of one hand clapping, is less than
instructive. The Federal Government's response is to give me more
money to offset the cost. This is not unwelcome, as the education
of my two toddlers is setting me back the same as sending one of
them to King's or Cranbrook or Ascham. (The child-care centre
offers much better value for money, however, and brings them into
contact with much better types.)

But making it cheaper does not solve the problem - which is that
all the centres are filled so far beyond capacity that their
waiting lists are measured in years, not months. In fact, throwing
money at the problem may worsen it. What do we do with cheap
petrol? Use more. With an extra lane of traffic? Fill it up. With
cheaper child care? Take up an extra day, thus stopping someone
else from getting in. The queue only gets longer.

It bemuses me to see government handouts described as
"X-thousand new places". Eh? At all the child-care centres I've
seen, the only "new places" could be those created with bricks and
mortar. "New places" means building new centres and training new
carers. Naturally, this takes time, during which children keep
getting born, persistent buggers that they are, and demand
outstrips supply ever more.

The only way of beating this, as a parent, is to book your child
in at conception (better still, beforehand) and never ever move
house. For child care, as for maternity wards and schooling, you
are prodded to plan years and years ahead, and lock yourself in.
It's no surprise that we're becoming a plan-ahead, stay-still,
competitive (in a bad way) society. Locking people into rigid
five-year plans has always been an effective means of social
control. Perhaps it's all for the best to take decisions away from
parents. The way I'm going, in a couple of years I'll be incapable
of making sane choices anyway.